Durarara!! SH - Volume 4 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

What Are You Looking for Today?

There was once a legend in Shinjuku of a cursed sword by the name of Saika.

It was in the weapon’s nature to love humanity. Not long after World War II, it was said an American soldier found it on the black market, and that was how it made its appearance in modern times.

After a legendary, tremendous battle to the death against a bamboo spear with a mind of its own, the sword disappeared into the darkness again—but among people who were experts in things of an uncanny nature, such as the Headless Rider, it was treated as common fact that the cursed sword did indeed exist.

Saika was a being with a feminine personality that lived parasitically within the human body. Similar to the Headless Rider’s shadow, it ignored both modern science and the very laws of physics.

“She” flooded the person who used her with a cursed stream of words of love, giving them orders to love humanity and make children. Under that brainwashing, anyone whose mind was taken over by the sword would attempt to speak of love with human beings.

That might make it sound harmless, but the problem was that to a blade like Saika, expressing love meant physical contact. Sinking her blade into human flesh and bathing in its blood was her ultimate expression of love. It was the equivalent of sex in Saika’s mind. Once the target was infected, they were forced to revere the owner of the katana as their “mother” and be controlled as a puppet.

Those who were sliced by the sword were “children,” and when those children picked up blades of various kinds, such as scissors or kitchen knives, they became the medium that would whisper love to others in turn. Those cut by the children became “grandchildren” and multiplied onward, creating a chain that would fill the world with accursed love as far as the mother wanted.

However, sometimes there were children and grandchildren with strong enough willpower to escape the mother’s control. Some people could pick up Saika and simply not fall under the effects of her curse, either because of uncommonly strong will, a special mental construction, or because they were not human to begin with.

Anyone who could wield a weapon like Saika without falling prey to its tainting effects would be a severe threat to modern society—but for now, the owner of Saika, living in Ikebukuro, showed no inklings of that kind of ambition or malice.

Anri Sonohara was one of those extremely rare examples of a person who could coexist with Saika and retain her own personality.

Saika latched itself on to people and sang the sin of love for the world.

The girl envied the sword’s love and accepted it—and by latching herself on to Saika, she found herself able to maintain a very strange mental balance as she made her way in the world.

Of course, because she lived with Saika, she found herself involved in troubles of various kinds, more often than not.

Was it Saika that drew the current headache closer, or was it something else entirely? Anri could not even begin to guess yet.

Anri realized the problem when, after an early morning breakfast, she went to stock up on items from the shop’s storehouse to fill the empty spots on the shelves.

The storehouse was built around the back of the building, which functioned as both a shop front and a home. The padlock on the entrance was broken, and the shelves and boxes inside had been ransacked, as though a burglar had been looking for something. Every single drawer was pulled out, with its contents spilled all over the floor.

It was a relief that nothing in particular seemed to have been destroyed, but once Anri realized that it was not from an earthquake, she decided to inform the police, though she was apprehensive about doing so. It wasn’t because she had done anything she felt guilty about. Despite the fact that Saika slumbered within her body, Anri did not worry that the police would trouble her about that.

Her reason for hesitation was one that most ordinary people would find rather otherworldly. Because her safe and deeds and so on were in the home, there was nothing out here but inventory. At a glance, none of the big objects seemed to be damaged or stolen, so Anri, who was not the most world-wise, thought, If I report something this minor to the police, I’ll probably just be bothering them. She’d considered what people might say, too, but she decided that if she did nothing and the same burglar hit another home in the neighborhood, she would bear responsibility for her inaction.

So she reported the incident to the police.

The last time a police car had been parked outside the house was the day her parents died.

They asked her questions about the business and so on—but that caused her to realize a big problem.

She herself wasn’t really sure what had been stolen.

After her parents’ deaths, everything left in the storehouse was of unknown value, sitting dormant because she couldn’t simply discard the merchandise. Bit by bit, she appraised items and put them into the shop or occasionally placed a newer item near the entrance, but she hadn’t created a registry of everything inside.

Because the burglar had ransacked the place all the way to the back and most of the big items were still present and unharmed, she couldn’t really tell exactly how much she’d lost.

“Hmm… Well, how about this. Once you’ve identified precisely what’s been stolen, give us a call. My guess is that your burglar got inside, then wasn’t sure what was worth anything and took a few small trinkets with them…or perhaps they just ran off without anything at all. Some thieves are cunning enough to avoid a petty larceny charge if it’s not worth it, so they figure that if they take nothing instead, they’ll only be on the hook for breaking and entering if they get caught.”

The police sampled some footprints they found that didn’t belong to Anri and asked her if anyone else used the storehouse. She was the only one who actually went inside. When opening the shop, she had help from her old high school classmates, Mikado Ryuugamine and Masaomi Kida, and some others like Kadota and Karisawa went in and out, too. But none of their prints, if still there, would be fresh in any way.

They also found fingerprints on the padlock that didn’t belong to Anri; they said they would run them through the database and use that in the investigation.

Once that formal inspection was finished, the police promptly left. It wasn’t a vicious, violent crime, and the damages were unclear, so it couldn’t be a very high priority for them.

Even still, Anri was grateful to the team of nearly ten officers who came to examine the crime scene and politely saw them off in front of the store, bowing.

Behind her, someone said, “Whoa, what happened, Miss Sonohara?”

She turned around to find a boy with bright green hair. It was one of the new students at Raira Academy, who’d become a regular customer in the last few months: Kuon Kotonami.

“A burglar got inside, it seems like…,” Anri said, as though distracted by something else.

“What?! Is everything okay?!”

“Well, I’m not actually sure what was stolen… Oh…I’m sorry. It’ll be a bit longer before I can open the shop, I think.”

“Oh! No, no, don’t worry about me! I just saw a post on an Ikebukuro message board that there were cop cars out in front of a local antiques shop, so I thought it might be your place. That’s the only reason I’m here!” he admitted without a shred of tact. “I wonder why they broke into your place, though… Maybe because they expected you had treasures you’d see on those antique appraisal TV shows, like gold koban coins, Edo era pottery, stuff like that?”

“…”

“I mean, not to suggest that you don’t have treasures! I’m sorry.”

“Oh no…”

Anri’s silence was not because anything Kuon said had displeased her. It was because she had a sudden thought.

The police asked her if she had any ideas on who had done it. As a matter of fact, there was one thing that occurred to her from the moment she knew a burglar had broken in.

But she couldn’t tell the cops about that—because it involved Saika.

Just the night before, there had been a strange man who desired Saika for himself.

“…I want you to sell me Saika. I can offer you…five million yen for the moment,” he’d said.

She played back the conversation from half a day earlier.

“Or you could just cut me and make me your child.”

“Saika… What do you mean?” Anri had said, trying to play dumb, but the man with the bandaged face just smirked.

“You don’t need to be coy. The fact that I’m here knowing that much should tell you that I’m not just some window-shopper.”

“Where did you hear about…?”

“I happen to know one of her children, who escaped the control of the mother. That’s all you really need to know.”

“…!”

“…Based on the look on your face, I’m guessing you won’t sell it for money. I’ll just have to give up.”

The young man turned and made to leave, prompting Anri to speak up.

“Wait. Couldn’t you just ask your friend to cut you? It would do the same thing…”

“They’re gone now. Half insane to begin with. Also, I saw two of those people who got cut, and they were both driven insane.”

The man put his hand on the door to leave, only turning back to give Anri one final comment.

“…To be honest, I think it’s incredible that you can wield such a fantastical sword and still lead a normal life. I really respect you. That’s not me being facetious.”

She couldn’t help but suspect that the mysterious young man who came and went had something to do with this incident.

But given how easily he gave up and left, she couldn’t say for sure if he was so desperate that he would commit a crime to get what he wanted.

In an attempt to gain Saika for himself, he probably could have threatened me somehow… That way, I might have been forced to cut him with Saika…because he said that he was fine with being turned into a child… And if he really knew about Saika, he should know that he wasn’t going to find the blade by ransacking the storehouse. On the other hand, if he knew that Saika’s been “branched” into several blades…

The more she thought, the deeper her mind sank in the quagmire, so Anri decided to cut Saika out of her guesses at the motivation behind this breaking and entering.

She needed to explain the situation accurately to someone else—and soon. So she decided to ask the man who was acting as the shop’s legal guardian and some friends like Mikado.

She placed the call to the guardian at almost the exact same time that Kuon, who knew about the break-in, sent out a text message to all the members of Snake Hands.

Now that the police and curious onlookers had left, two shadows lurked next to the fence around a park in the vicinity of the store, watching Sonohara-dou.

“…I really didn’t think that we were going to the exact same place. I’m a little surprised.”

“…Yes, I agree. Um, Mr. Akabayashi, did you know that I was acquainted with Anri…?”

“Uh, I had an inkling. I heard a couple times about a girl like Anri going in and out of Dr. Kishitani’s place in the last year or two. And there’s Mikado Ryuugamine, too, of course.”

“I’m sorry about that…”

Celty, too, had an inkling about the relationship between Akabayashi and Anri, thanks to the things she learned when she’d been fused with her own head during the Dollars incident.

But Anri didn’t seem to know that Akabayashi was a yakuza, so Celty had never talked about him in her presence.

“Well, I feel bad hiding it, but she still thinks I’m in the crab-wholesaling business. Once her store finds its own footing, I intend to tell her the truth and then keep my distance. If it gets out that she’s backed by a yakuza, she’s going to be exposed to all kinds of groundless suspicions,” Akabayashi said with a grimace.

“Don’t worry—I won’t tell her,” Celty reassured him.

“I appreciate that, courier.”

There was movement outside the shop. A van that Celty recognized had stopped out front, and two familiar faces emerged.

Is that…Yahiro?! And, uh…umm…the driver for Kadota’s group, the Ruri superfan? Ohhh, I get it. He sent that message to Yahiro and everyone else, too.

They got out of the van in a hurry, clearly concerned. The door to Sonohara-dou opened.

But it was Kuon who appeared in the doorway, not Anri. Apparently, his bold lookie-loo mentality continued on strong after the police had left, and he was still hanging out inside the store.

He really does worm his way into whatever place he wants to be, Celty thought. Knowing Kuon’s personality, she imagined that he was planning to turn the news into an online article of some kind.

Perhaps she should stop him before it caused more trouble for Anri, she thought.

With no discernable emotion, Akabayashi said, “I can’t help but wonder about that fella with the green hair.”

“…?! No, no, it’s fine! Anri has Mikado already! And that green-haired boy isn’t the completely amoral and wicked sort, regardless of how he looks. I think.”

“Well, er, I’m worried about Mikado, too. Though it’s been a relief to hear that he’s totally withdrawn from the underworld in recent days. But that’s not what I mean…”

Akabayashi started fiddling with his phone, pulling up a video.

“That’s him, isn’t it?”

It was a sight that Celty had seen on the Internet many times by now. A blurry and distant video of a boy picking a fight with Shizuo Heiwajima, attempting to save a green-haired boy.

… Celty had no idea what to write.

“Based on your reaction, I would suspect that you know this green-haired boy…”

Uh-oh. Did I just dig my own grave?! Celty inwardly freaked out. Akabayashi placed a hand on her shoulder and smirked. There was a steely glint in his eyes.

“You know, courier, I’d really appreciate the whole story. Could you tell me?”

Meanwhile—outside Kishimojin Temple, Ikebukuro

“Hey, Mr. Shijima, Mr. Shijima! Is this Kishimojin Temple Shinto? Or Buddhist? Which is it?”

A voice that was all too childish and frivolous for the height of the speaker bounced off the stone tiles outside of the temple.

“If it’s for a god, then it’s a Shinto shrine, I guess? But it’s not like the other shrines I know about.”

While the tanned boy was taller, his features were still very youthful. He was speaking to a bandaged man walking in front of him.

The man with the glasses over his bandages kept his cold gaze forward as he answered the boy’s question.

“…Kishimojin is a god who protects Buddhism. This is a temple.”

“But there are all those torii gates, right? Those are for Shinto shrines, and the ones that don’t have them are temples. That’s what my dad said!”

“…Those torii belong to Takeyoshi Inari Shrine, which worships the great Shinto god Inari. This place was originally known as Inari’s forest. The temple to Kishimojin was built later.”

“Oh, really?” said the tanned boy, who started to giggle.

“…What’s so funny?”

“Just that even someone totally evil like you still says the ‘great’ god Inari. Like you have to be respectful!”

“…If you’re not, you’ll be divinely punished,” said the man named Shijima. His cheeks were flushed despite his cold gaze, a sign of his embarrassment about the boy’s observation.

The boy couldn’t see his expression, though. He walked in the rear, smiling innocently, and dropped a comment that absolutely should not be dropped in public.

“If you get divinely punished, it’ll be because you tried to sell a lot of drugs around here, Mr. Shijima.”

Shijima’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, I’ve already been punished for that.” They darkened with self-deprecation. “But considering what I’ve done already, the fact that I’m still walking and breathing means I haven’t been punished enough yet.”

Hiroto Shijima was a young man born into the family that owned the Shijima Group, a hugely powerful business primarily active in real estate. Despite leading a fairly normal and earnest life, there was a part of him deep inside that looked down on others; he proceeded through school feeling bored of the whole affair.

His life took a turn when a man named Kumoi, drawn by his financial power and connections, invited him to build a mutual aid society dedicated to creating legal drugs.

Kumoi was a strange man. There was no particular presence or personal charisma to him, but his instructions were mysteriously accurate and insightful. He often amazed Shijima and the other principal members of the aid society.

The way that he conjured up viable sales routes for their legal drugs was akin to seeing an elite board game player who seemed to have a special perspective that no one else shared.

Even after Kumoi vanished into the wind, Shijima continued to chase his shadow.

After the group made the transition from legal to illegal drugs, ultimately earning the ire of the Awakusu-kai, Shijima continued to set foot into deeper and deeper darkness, never pulling back.

“I idolized Kumoi, and I envied him. I wanted to stand on his shoulders,” Shijima explained after they left the grounds of Kishimojin Temple, paying no attention to who might be listening. “That’s why I kept using his name to grow the organization, even if it meant I’d have to eliminate him eventually. Akabayashi from the Awakusu-kai and Izaya Orihara ruined everything. I wasn’t taking them lightly, but it turned out that Orihara guy was even more trouble than Kumoi was.”

“Izaya Orihara? Never heard of him.”

“That’s because he hasn’t been seen in Ikebukuro in two years. The last time I spotted him, he had a knife stuck in his guts and was bleeding out…but I don’t really care if he’s alive or dead at this point.”

“That’s surprising to me. You seem like a really obsessive guy. I would have thought you’d hated him with a passion,” cackled the brown-skinned boy.

Shijima frowned a bit. “Oh, I do, but it’s not Izaya Orihara in particular I hate. It’s society itself… Or more accurately, the city of Ikebukuro, I guess.”

“Why’s that?”

“…Because it didn’t pay attention to me.”

“?”

The boy tilted his head with confusion, still smiling. Shijima explained, “After Heaven’s Slave went down, I got used by everyone: Izaya Orihara, Jinnai Yodogiri, Nasujima… It was like the entire city itself treated me like some kind of utilitarian tool to be worn out. That’s why I turned desperate and decided to at least take down the Dollars’ boss with me.”

“I’ve heard of the Dollars. I didn’t hear that it was such a wild ending, though.”

“…Yes, because I was mistaken. The Dollars, Izaya Orihara, Yodogiri, the Headless Rider—all the really big movers in town didn’t even see me as a tool to use. I learned that I was just garbage, not fit for anyone’s attention at all.”

Shijima ground his teeth so hard that it was audible even under all the bandages over his mouth.

When the ugliness happened with the Dollars and the street slashings, he had been very close to the center of events.

But had his malice bounced back on him and delivered karmic retribution?

The answer was no.

He was just left there, adrift in the midst of chaos, unimportant.

He didn’t suffer any punishment. The urban legend that once captured him in shadow; the man Nasujima, who showed off his alien Saika power; Izaya Orihara, who was fighting to the death with the monstrous Shizuo Heiwajima just nearby; various monsters and motorcycle gangs filling the streets; color-based street gangs; the Awakusu-kai; the police—none of them did a single thing to him.

Ordinarily, you would consider that fact to be a sign of good fortune—but this just showed Shijima that the pride he’d thought was already shattered had been barely even cracked before.

He was nothing more than “miscellaneous.”

When the surge and flow of fate brought a mixture of reality and fantasy to Ikebukuro, it was like he’d been told that he was utterly dispensable, interchangeable, beneath notice.

The would-be villain was devastated.

Not because he’d been lumped in with all the people he’d always looked down on.

It was understanding that he was no one, less important than anyone else, that robbed all hope from Shijima’s mind.

He wasn’t even important enough to drag anyone else down with him.

Hiroto Shijima didn’t even rise to the level of being a loser.

“I just want revenge. I don’t have grand ambitions or an ironclad plan for the future. I’ll tilt the balance of the city, bit by bit, and hopefully one day the whole thing will topple over. Although it’s far more likely that the only thing toppling over is my head off my shoulders,” he said sardonically. Then he asked the tanned boy behind him, “What about you, Jami? Nothing good is going to come of hanging around me and Earthworm.”

The boy he called Jami was unaffected. “That’s fine. I knew you were a tiny man from the very start, Mr. Shijima.” His eyes narrowed. “Big people don’t rage, for one thing. But I like your little gathering. I don’t have to think about anything, and you’ll let me fight whenever I want.”

“Yes, I can arrange any number of combat opponents for you. I believe that the accumulation of carnage will eventually destabilize this city.”

“But today’s target is a woman, right? I don’t exactly get a kick out of punching and attacking women. Let’s not do this. I know you’re a very petty man, but this is just in bad taste, I think.”

“…Have you gotten the wrong idea somehow?” Shijima asked, arching an eyebrow. For the first time, he turned around to look at Jami. The boy had moved off the street to walk atop the wall bordering the street instead. “What are you doing?”

“Practicing my balance! It’s fun. Want me to do a dance for you?”

“Don’t do anything that will draw attention.”

“Says the guy walking around with his face all bandaged up like a mummy,” Jami grumbled, hopping back down to the ground. “Honestly, I think you’re drawing way more attention than me.”

“I’m allowed to.” Once he was satisfied that Jami was walking on the street normally, Shijima faced forward again and continued, “At any rate, I said I would show you a woman to watch out for. I didn’t say you needed to fight her… But then again, if I want you to understand, the quickest way is to draw her hostility, I suppose…”

“Understand what?” Jami asked.

“The fact that there are things all over Ikebukuro that surpass the bounds of human knowledge.”

Shijima made to turn around a corner, wearing a wicked smile.

“…”

But as soon as he started to turn, he swiveled back a hundred and eighty degrees, placed a hand on Jami’s shoulder, and promptly marched back in the direction they’d come.

“Huh? What? What is it, Mr. Shijima?” Jami goggled.

Shijima murmured under his breath, “Now’s not a good time. That was a bad combination I just saw.”

“?”

Jami crept up to the corner and peered around it, gazing at what lay beyond.

He saw two figures at the next corner, holding a conversation while attempting to hide their presence.

One was a man with tinted glasses holding a cane.

The second figure was none other than the Headless Rider from those videos.

“Wow.” Jami whistled to himself and trotted back to Shijima. “Hey, man! Isn’t that the Headless Rider?! I can tell because I’ve seen the rider before in person! Is it true it’s not human?”

“Yes, the Headless Rider is not human. And it’s insane that such a creature can walk around in broad daylight,” Shijima stated. He clenched his jaw a bit, then explained, “But the real problem is the guy with the Headless Rider.”

“The old man with the cane?”

“…That’s Akabayashi from the Awakusu-kai. He’s a real pain—he totally messed up my old group, Heaven’s Slave.”

“Ohhh, so he’s a yakuza! Don’t worry—I’m not afraid of guns or whatever,” said Jami, which was impossible not to hear as insane overconfidence.

But Shijima didn’t reprimand him in any way. He just corrected a different part of the statement. “Akabayashi doesn’t use a gun. That’s not what makes him scary,” he said, glancing over his shoulder and picking up his pace. “Let’s leave for today. Picking a fight with the guy who hates drugs was how things all started going downhill. If he knows my face, he could beat me to death the moment he recognizes me.”

“You know I can hold my own against yakuza.”

“Yeah, you’re strong. You’ll be fine. But I’m not. If he attacks me while you’re dealing with the Headless Rider, there’s not a single advantage I have. Same thing in the reverse situation. The Headless Rider probably doesn’t care about me at all but has no reason to let me run away… What’s up with you? Are you really raring to fight right now?” Shijima sighed.

Jami flashed him a childlike smile. “Yeah!”

“…Then let’s change the order.”

He dropped his cold gaze to the ground and grumbled.

“How about instead…I take you to see that guy you wanted to meet, Shizuo Heiwajima?”

Hmm?

Celty turned around, feeling a strange presence, but there was no one else on the street.

“What’s the matter, courier?”

“Er, nothing. I was just imagining things.”

I wonder what that was. I definitely felt something, she thought.

Despite her curiosity, it wasn’t important enough to leave Akabayashi hanging, so she let the matter go.

“So anyway, here you are again, getting involved in the mischief these high schoolers get up to.”

“Well, it’s not like we’re making some weird gang like with Mikado… Now, I agree that it’s dangerous for high schoolers to be running an odd jobs business, but they’re likely to get into that danger with or without me, so I figure it’ll be easier to stop them if I’m within the group…”

“I know how you feel. I also know that you’re not the kind to hurt those kids to force them to stop. My personal feeling is I don’t want Anri dragged into any trouble. That’s the main thing I’d appreciate.”

“I’ll do everything I can to that end.”

Wait a second—did I just take on a request that will prove to be extremely annoying to fulfill? Then again, if you ask me, it’s Mr. Akabayashi’s presence that is most likely to bring trouble into the mix for her…

“Don’t make that face, ma’am. I know that as an outsider, I’m the biggest trouble of all. I’m just asking—do your best within reason.”

Is he psychic?! What’s going on?! How are all these Awakusu-kai people able to read my expression when I don’t have a face to read?!

“I think of Anri as a friend, too. I wouldn’t want to allow my friends to fall into danger.”

“…I see. Then I suppose I can’t ask you to do anything too dangerous. No carrying bombs or people’s innards.”

“Have you had me transport those things before?!”

“No. Just a joke.” Akabayashi smirked. While she breathed a sigh of relief, he glanced in the direction of Sonohara-dou and muttered, “We’d keep those jobs in-house anyway.”

Celty decided to treat that as a joke, too, and ignore it. She gazed at Sonohara-dou in silence.

“But I suppose I shouldn’t be popping my head in while those kids are around. Once they leave the shop, I’ll go in.”

“Good idea. I’ll visit another time. It would be strange for us to go in together.”

After parting ways with Akabayashi, Celty returned to Shooter and ambled along slowly, feeling for the presence of others nearby.

Hmm. That strange presence I was feeling earlier is gone, she thought, recalling what she’d sensed. It wasn’t another kind of fairy, but it didn’t seem entirely human, either… It reminded me of Kujiragi, but it wasn’t quite her, either…

Kujiragi was a former romantic rival, a woman who seemed to have a mixture of human blood and something else.

Then Celty recognized something approaching. She focused on it.

Yes, Kujiragi’s presence felt more like this…

…Wait, what?

Right where she was focusing, standing on the street, was a woman wearing glasses and a cool demeanor.

It was the very woman who had helped orchestrate chaos in Ikebukuro and attempted to steal Shinra from Celty. It was, in fact, Kasane Kujiragi.

“K-Kujiragi…?”

If Celty’s head had been around, her mouth would be mindlessly flapping open and closed in silence, so complete was her physical shock. In contrast, Kujiragi bowed, utterly expressionless and still.

“…It’s been a long time, Celty.”

Her face was just as blank when she straightened up again. That social formality that made Celty freeze.

“It is good to see you well. How is Shinra Kishitani?”

Inside Sonohara-dou

“So you don’t know what was actually stolen?” Himeka Tatsugami asked.

Anri nodded, clearly troubled. “That’s right… I would know if it was something I’d stocked since reopening the store, because it would be in my records…but I don’t have a list of everything from when my father was running the shop…”

“I bet there was, like, some crazy treasure back there. Like, curios from previous generations that you didn’t even know about or treasure maps…,” Kuon said.

“Kotonami, please read the room.” Himeka dragged him backward by the ear.

“Aaah! Ow, ow—hey, you’re gonna stretch my piercing out!”

“Well, I’m really glad that you weren’t hurt at all,” Yahiro said, a subtle sign of relief on his face.

Anri beamed at him. “Thank you very much. I’m sorry to have worried my regular customers like this…”

She examined the three underclassmen with fresh eyes.

Himeka, Yahiro, and Kuon shared one thing in common—a tendency not to show their emotions—but Anri was coming to understand the subtle differences between the three.

Yahiro was simply not accustomed to displaying emotion. When he felt troubled, he looked like it, and he would smile when he was happy, but everything he did had an awkward feel to it.

In Himeka’s case, she was probably extremely mentally tough. In exchange for not being shaken by anything, she almost never laughed or looked exasperated, for example.

Kuon was actually quite expressive, but it seemed more like a pattern of overacting meant to hide his true emotions.

Kotonami is like Kida, and Tatsugami is like Saki, I suppose, she thought, recalling some close friends. But the thought of expressionless people jogged her memory, too. Miss Kujiragi was like that…but she’s not quite like any of them. How is she able to be so devoid of facial expressions? If you listen to her talk, it’s sometimes clear when she’s enjoying herself, but…

On the street, Ikebukuro

“What do you mean, ‘How is Shinra?’ Do you think I’d tell you?!”

“No, I am not expecting an answer. I am an enemy to you. I simply asked how Shinra Kishitani is because I was curious, and I can state in all honesty that I have no intention of provoking you.”

“No, no, no! First of all, how dare you show up here! I just assumed that you were never going to appear in Ikebukuro again!”

Celty dismounted from Shooter and marched up to Kujiragi as though she were going to grab the woman by the shirt. Instead, she shoved her smartphone in Kujiragi’s face.

The woman was not intimidated, though. She brushed off that anger as easily as a fly. “While I have fewer opportunities to visit Ikebukuro lately, I do find the time to conduct transactions at Sonohara-dou and attend dress-up events for Bespectacled Beaus: The Double Shotgun.”

“Bespectacled…what?” Celty asked, befuddled.

Kujiragi repeated, “Bespectacled Beaus: The Double Shotgun. It is a glorious mass arranged by Lady Eternal de Charmonte for the purpose of summoning down one’s alternate persona, to break free from the shell of ordinary life.”

“What the hell does that mean?! First, you tried to abduct me and sell me off, and now you’re doing drugs?! And…wait a second. Eternal what?”

“Lady Eternal de Charmonte.”

It sounded like the name of a noble in a video game. But it struck Celty in a different way.

“I’ve heard of that before… But where…? I think it was on a video site…”

After a few moments, the image of a friend dressed all in black popped into Celty’s head.

“Isn’t that Karisawa’s online name?!”

“Yes. It is also Lady Erika Karisawa’s cosplay name. Incidentally, my cosplay name is Scool Nyan-Nyan. The ‘nyan-nyan’ part is written with the kanji for ‘girl’ and ‘cat,’ which is very important. Not cat-girl. It’s girl-cat,” Kujiragi stated quite seriously. She held out a special business card for the cosplay group.

Celty did take the card, although she trembled as she typed on the phone.

“I seriously do not care! Aaargh, there are so many withering comments I could say, my mind can’t process them all! For one thing, you are too old to be calling yourself ‘school’ anything! Although, yes, I know that some people go back to school when they’re older!”

“I think you’re mistaken. According to Lady Erika Karisawa, who gave me that name, it is not school but a portmanteau of serious and cool.”

“I literally could not care less!” Celty typed, the equivalent of yelling. She furiously wrote more and showed the message to Kujiragi. “Shit! I’ve been raging about this since last night, and it continues to be true! Why are the only grown adults around me who are relatively normal the ones from the Awakusu-kai?!”

“By the way, how is Shinra Kishitani?”

“Listen to what I’m telling you!”

A minute-long battle broke out between Celty, who tried to tie up her opponent with shadow, and Kujiragi, who used inhuman agility and bizarre tools to continually evade capture. Eventually, Celty sensed that people were starting to gather to watch, so she stopped, shoulders heaving.

“…Should we go somewhere else?” she suggested.

“Understood. I did not come here today to fight with you. I am on the run from the Awakusu-kai… I saw Mr. Mizuki Akabayashi earlier, and I cannot simply remain present when I know that he is in the area,” Kujiragi replied, putting away all her numerous odd items.

Celty held out her smartphone screen. “Well…at least you’re self-aware enough to know you’re being chased.”

Sonohara-dou

When the high schoolers started to discuss something in a corner of the shop, their chaperone, Togusa, slipped over to Anri. He murmured, “Hey, uh, do they know about the you-know-what? Uh, the sword.”

Anri shook her head. “No, they don’t…I think. And I doubt that Mikado has told them…”

“Ah, all right. It’s just, they know Karisawa and Yumasaki, too, so I’m sorry if those two spill the beans to them. Luckily, those two are probably smart enough to keep your secret.”

“I’m surprised you know Yahiro, too, Mr. Togusa.”

“…Oh. You remember my name.” Togusa had just assumed that he was “the driver” to her. It was a rare feeling of warmth, and it caught him off guard.

“?” Anri tilted her head in confusion.

“Er, it’s nothing. Anyway, I don’t know about the other two, but that Yahiro kid knows Celty, and he’s kind of like a little brother to me. So, y’know, be good to him.”

“It did seem to me that he has met Celty.”

“Oh, you knew already.”

Togusa shrugged, and Anri beamed quietly.

She’d heard a bit about Yahiro from Mikado, including that it was quite likely he knew Celty, too. But now that she found out he knew Togusa and Karisawa on top of that, she couldn’t help but be startled at just how small the world could be.

Whether he knew what she was thinking or not, Togusa continued, “Well, if anything happens, I’m sure Kadota and Karisawa and Yumasaki will come running. If there’s anything we can do for you, just say the word.”

“…! Thank you…”

While a part of Anri felt bad for making so many people worry about her, it was also kind of heartwarming to know that there were so many people in the city who were kind and caring enough to think about her.

There was a time that she thought Saika’s curse could only bring misfortune, but while it did cause trouble, it had also brought her together with some wonderful people, not least of which was Celty. Anri was grateful for that, and she felt that she owed a great debt to them—and to Saika as well.

All the while, Saika continued to drone her words of love inside Anri’s mind.

The high schoolers had finished whatever they were talking about and came back toward her.

“Miss Sonohara, is there anything we can help you with?” Kuon asked.

“Huh?” she exclaimed, eyes wide.

“I mean, you’ve been giving us all these deals just because we go to your old school. The truth is, we run an odd jobs business; it’s kind of like a part-time thing for us. So in return, we want to help you with whatever you need. We can do it for free, just for you. Would you like us to run a night watch outside your store?”

“That’s kind of rude, Kuon. It sounds like you’re forcing her to accept a favor she’ll have to return,” Yahiro quickly interjected, although he also picked up right where Kuon left off by continuing, “I’m sorry about him. But the truth is, it scares me to know there are burglars in the area, so if there’s any way we can help to catch the culprit…”

“Oh…no, it’s fine. I’ve already left this in the hands of the police, so…”

Anri certainly didn’t want to get a bunch of students in trouble like this. Yet the green-haired, pierced boy had a look in his eye like he’d spotted some entertaining prey. He struggled to hide his sneer.

“But don’t you think it’s scarier if they actually didn’t take anything? If they were after something else, they might come back again, you know? Aaaaaaaah! My ear! Stop stretching!”

“Why are you trying to make her nervous…?” Yahiro grumbled. He and Himeka each had one of Kuon’s ears between their fingers.

Togusa sighed and whispered to Anri, “Uh…listen. Yahiro’s kind of like Celty; he’ll rush off on his own. If you try to tell him not to do anything, he might end up starting his own vigilante squad. I think it’d be best to just have him do something easy and insignificant, just so he’s satisfied.”

“But…umm…”

Still, she couldn’t have him going to search for the burglar. Anri considered for a moment and then, against her better judgment, decided to hire Snake Hands for a “job.”

“Well, then…would you be able to help me clean up the ransacked storehouse?”

Alley out front of the store

Akabayashi watched and waited for a while, confused.

“What’s this? Those kids aren’t comin’ back out…”

Then he received a call on his phone. He found that it was from a member of Jan-Jaka-Jan, a motorcycle gang working under his wing.

“Yep, it’s me… Ahhh, uh-huh… Yeah… Yeah.”

He gave a quick, vague instruction and then ended the call. Then he looked up to the sky, lifted the cane to pat his own shoulder, and exhaled.

“I see, I see… So the Heaven’s Slave folks have found some overseas partners.”

Although he was smirking at first, Akabayashi’s eyes soon narrowed menacingly.

“Pretty soon, your grandpa and pop won’t be able to cover for ya anymore, Hiroto Shijima.”

Ikebukuro

“That’s Shizuo Heiwajima.”

While Akabayashi was muttering to himself, Hiroto Shijima was in close proximity to an incarnation of violence from which no amount of political power could shield him.

“The blond one in the sunglasses,” he explained, jutting his chin toward one of the two men who had just left the building they were watching.

Jami whistled. “Oooh. He really is a bartender! How come?”

“Don’t know. Maybe he just likes wearing the vest.”

“Well, I’m gonna go pick a fight with him.”

“Ah—hey, you could stand to observe a bit longer…,” Shijima stammered as Jami ran off without listening to a word. He clicked his tongue. “Well, that’s just great. I won’t be able to use him for a while… I just hope he doesn’t die.”

But despite the disappointment, Shijima was just a bit curious.

If that Snake Hands monster put up such a good fight against Shizuo, how well would Jami be able to hold his own?

He resigned himself to not knowing, and he recalled the first time he encountered Jami.

Several months earlier

Basement casino, Tokyo

“…So in the end, you can’t use Saika’s power?”

“Nope. It’s like…how would you say it? I don’t have any memory of being controlled. It’s irritating, but the only method is to search out that Niekawa woman who slashed me, I guess.”

“Don’t worry. The original Saika is in town, I hear. We’ll get to the bottom of it eventually.”

The hushed conversation was between Shijima and Earthworm, the leader of Amphisbaena, a group that was once his enemy.

She had previously been under Saika’s control—and at someone else’s command—and when she was liberated from that control, she’d lost everything. Shijima found her when she was utterly lost and on her own. He had more or less taken her under his wing. Now they were working together.

Earthworm had used her old smarts to open an unauthorized underground casino at a different location, not in Ikebukuro. It wasn’t quite as large as the previous attempt, and this one didn’t use electronic chips, but they’d found a new clientele through the Internet. They were even making a decent profit.

Shijima sensed the local mobsters would sniff them out soon and commanded Earthworm to shutter the casino for now—but while they were chatting about Saika, there came the sound of something breaking from the casino room.

“Bring me whoever’s in charge here. Look at all this. You know what this means?”

He was a moment too late. Several members of the local yakuza had just barged in. There were five tough-looking brawlers and a man dressed rather smartly leading them, threatening a card dealer.

“Oh my. I figured we’d clear out in another two or three sessions, but their ears are closer to the ground than I thought.” Earthworm sighed, watching the casino through a one-way mirror window.

“Can you manage them?”

“Assuming that’s all of them and they didn’t bring guns. If there are more outside, we might be in trouble.”

“Okay… Well, you’re in charge here, so it’s up to you… Hmm?” Shijima noticed something was wrong in the corner of the casino, while Earthworm sent a subordinate to check what it looked like outside.

A man who’d been winning big at the roulette table in the darkened back corner suddenly began acting strangely. The gamblers at the casino were watching the commotion from a distance with fright, but this man strode right up to the yakuza heavies—and slammed one of them on the back of the head with a bottle of the wine they served to visitors.

With a dull thud, the man dropped to the floor without uttering so much as a peep.

Shijima watched with astonishment. It was clear at a glance that this man wasn’t just some guy with a death wish. He had moved craftily through the blind spots of the men examining the casino before striking his target with the wine bottle before anyone knew he was there.

When the other toughs turned around, drawn by the noise, he used the same bottle to knock them out one after the other with blows to the temple, chin, bridge of the nose, and so on.

“What the hell…?!”

The smartly dressed man didn’t even have time to recognize the face of his opponent, because the attacker struck him quickly and forcefully between the eyes.

“…Guh…”

The leader toppled to the floor, foaming at the mouth, his upper body twitching.

Under the stunned gazes of the dealers and other gamblers, the man strode forward, undisturbed by anything that had just happened, and spoke to one of the casino workers, Earthworm’s subordinate.

“Hey, miss, do you have any orange juice?” he asked, smiling as innocently as a child, despite the fact that he’d just knocked six grown men unconscious. He held out the wine bottle to the woman.

“I’m a minor, so I’m not supposed to drink alcohol!”

“Is he possibly stronger than Shizuo Heiwajima…?”

Six professional artists of violence rendered unconscious in a matter of seconds. Shijima considered the odds of this question, recalling the feat he’d witnessed upon first meeting Jami. But the answer came to him quickly and easily.

“No. Certainly not.” He smirked to himself. Then he looked up to see the result of Jami’s attempt to add a new legend to his history: picking a fight with Shizuo Heiwajima.

The next instant, Jami disappeared.

“…?” Shijima could see Shizuo turning in their direction, as though he was staring directly at him. Shijima’s wariness was already growing when someone suddenly grabbed his shoulder. “Ah!”

He first expected to see Akabayashi, then more Awakusu-kai members. Carefully but swiftly, he spun around to see…

“Aaaaa, aaaaa!”

It was just Jami, pale-faced and trembling.

“…?”

Shijima didn’t understand. Why is he behind me?

Did he vanish so quickly because he’d been struck and knocked all the way back here? That was certainly possible if you were foolish enough to challenge Shizuo Heiwajima to a fight.

But the boy’s face was unharmed, and his clothes looked clean and undamaged. It was perplexing.

Jami, pale and shivering, still managed to wear a childlike smile as he tugged on Shijima’s sleeve. “H-h-h-he’s bad. He’s bad, bad, bad, Mr. Shijima.”

“…Did you already get hit?” Shijima asked, wondering if he’d taken a brief blow that was enough to traumatize him, even if it didn’t cause visible damage.

But Jami just shook his head, smiling. “No, no, no, if he hit me, I’d be done for, Mr. Shijima. Oh, man, he’s bad. What is that thing? It’s not a question of if he’s a monster or a human. I bet your garden-variety monster would get pulverized by that guy. He’s something else, Mr. Shijima.”

Despite the delighted and innocent smile on his face, it was covered by a sheen of cold sweat.

This is what the people who took a bad batch of those drugs looked like, Shijima thought. At this point, he no longer cared about the question of why Jami was behind him when he’d been right in front of Shizuo moments earlier.

“…What was that about?”

“Dunno… Maybe he’s recruiting people for a new martial arts gym or one of those things?”

On the other side, Shizuo Heiwajima and Tom Tanaka were puzzling over what they’d just seen.

Someone had said, “Hey, Shizuo Heiwajima!” and he turned around. But the moment he met eyes with the brown-skinned boy, the kid froze and then instantly bounced away like a spring-wound toy.

His feet touched the side of a building and, deftly utilizing the little protrusions, ran along the side of the wall, seemingly defying gravity, until he bounded off again.

It all happened in an instant, and if you weren’t paying close attention, you might have thought he’d simply vanished.

Once the man was over ten yards away, he hid behind another man standing there with bandages around his face, watching carefully.

“…Is he trying to hire you for the circus? You could be the strongman who tears chains apart and stuff,” Tom said.

“I’m not really a fan of doing stuff in front of an audience…,” Shizuo replied.

“Yeah, I don’t get it…but maybe it was an emergency or something. Let’s go talk to him.”

“Okay.”

At Tom’s suggestion, Shizuo took a step toward the two men.

“He’s coming! He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming, Mr. Shijima! I might not die, but you will, Mr. Shijima, and if you die, I’ll be really bored again, and I really don’t like Miss Earthworm—c’mon, let’s run away!” Jami exclaimed like a horror movie fanatic who was delighted about the prospect of being scared.

“Calm down, man. And don’t get me involved in—” Shijima started to complain, until his body began to float off the ground.

“Let’s go, then! Let’s go, Mr. Shijima! Sorry if I drop you!”

“Wha—? Hey—don’t!”

Jami paid no heed to Shijima’s protestations. He bolted off and ran through the city with the speed of an athlete, carrying the weight of another full-grown man.

Left behind, Shizuo and Tom could only stare at each other in bafflement.

“…What the hell was that all about…?”

“No idea…”

Alleyway

“Huff—huff…ha…ha…ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Wow, Mr. Shijima, that was really scary and fun! Amazing! I’ve never had a thrill that good from a roller coaster or haunted mansion!”

“Just put me down,” grumbled Shijima, who was still slung over Jami’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Oh, sorry, Mr. Shijima, sorry. You’re really light, you know that? I bet that if Shizuo had punched me back there, I would have died in one hit. That was scary!”

“…What happened? Why did you just run away like that?”

“Well, I thought I was going to say something to that Shizuo guy and then just start hitting him. But then our eyes met when he turned around. And that’s when I saw it. The thing.”

“What thing?”

“You know, it’s like the thing that happens when you’re almost about to die… What is it again?” Jami said excitedly, his hands gesticulating wildly.

“When your life flashes before your eyes?” Shijima sighed.

“Yes! That!”

“…Um, did you really need me to tell you what it’s called?”

“Yes…? It’s why I asked… Anyway, my point is, that happened to me the moment our eyes met. I was, like, Uh-oh, I think I’m gonna die! All the hairs on my body stood on end, and the next thing I knew, I was running on the wall!”

So basically, he freaked out when Shizuo looked at him? Why does he act like he enjoyed the experience so much? Shijima wondered.

Jami twirled on the spot, eyes sparkling. “This city is such a fun place, Mr. Shijima! I’m so glad I came here!”

“So you had a lot of fun fighting Snake Hands, but you’ll run away from Shizuo.”

“They’re made of different stuff! Snake Hands had real snakelike danger, which made him worth beating, but that Shizuo guy is more like a bomb waiting to go off. You don’t fight something like that.”

Recalling the mysterious and monstrous Snake Hands that he fought previously, Jami stared at his palms.

“He was weird, but he was really enjoying unleashing his full deadly powers on me,” he said, an odd and violent way to describe their encounter. Jami smiled again.

“So I think he’d be the better one to get into a fight with.”

Storehouse, Sonohara-dou

“…”

Himeka noticed that Yahiro’s eyes were focused on his hands, palms up.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Oh, I cut my finger.”

While helping clean up, he’d caught his finger on a splinter, and it was bleeding a little.

“Are you all right? I have bandages if you want one.”

“No, I’ll be fine. It’ll stop bleeding soon,” he said, clearly unconcerned. He pressed another finger against the wound for a few seconds. It didn’t make the cut disappear, but the bleeding more or less stopped.

“See?”

“…That’s amazing. You heal very fast.”

“It’s because ever since I was young, I’ve gotten hurt many times…”

“That’s not how that works.”

Himeka would have said more, but she noticed the myriad of scars on the back of Yahiro’s hand and did not want to prod him too much on the subject. She’d already heard that the scars on Yahiro’s hands were from punching his opponents, not getting hurt himself, but either way, they certainly weren’t good memories for him, she decided. She was going to move on and keep cleaning up, but at that point, Anri spoke up from the doorway to the storehouse.

“Oh, it’s all right—you can wrap up now.”

The high schoolers followed her lead and walked outside. Because it was more that things had been scattered about rather than destroyed, they had more or less finished putting back all the stuff on the floor in about thirty minutes.

The items hadn’t been stored in neat and organized groups in the first place, so just being able to walk through the shelves to reach the back was a significant enough improvement for Anri.

“Thank you all so much. I think it’s even tidier than it was before,” said the Raira Academy alum, bowing. It didn’t feel like they’d done all that much, which made Yahiro feel uncomfortable with the show of gratitude.

Next to him, Kuon asked, “So what’s up? We cleaned up the place. Anything seem missing?”

“I don’t know… Many of the items were packed away in boxes…so some of these things I haven’t even seen before. I can’t be sure if anything was stolen…”

“Uh-huh. Well, I’m sorry we weren’t able to help you figure that out.”

“No, I’m not blaming you at all. You’ve been a huge help.”

Anri peered into the storehouse, then smiled back at the three of them. “If you’d like, I’ll let you have something from here. It’s not exactly payment for a job, but I’d like you to each have one item.”

“What?! No, that’s way too generous of you!” Kuon protested, while his facial expression said, Whoo-hoo, score!

Yahiro and Himeka gave him a sidelong look, then shared a conflicted moment.

“No, we didn’t do this for gifts…,” Yahiro started to say.

But at that point, Togusa appeared at the entrance to the building and said, “Just take what she’s offering. You’re kids; you shouldn’t be acting mature beyond your years.”

“Saburo? Where have you been?” Yahiro asked.

“Well, it seemed like you were going to be a while, so I moved the van to a nearby parking lot. But my point is, don’t act like you’re doing charity. Just accept the reward. This way, Anri won’t have to live with the guilt of taking high school students’ valuable time, making them work for free. This way, you’re both getting something out of it.”

“But…I don’t know what’s really valuable,” Yahiro said, torn.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Anri reassured him. “Everything I’ve added since opening is cheap…and the things that were already back here were too difficult to put a price to anyway. If it’s really not meant to go, I’ll tell you right away.”

“Okay… Well, in that case…”

Yahiro looked to Himeka again, and they nodded in unison.

The three checked every shelf in the storehouse, thinking of what they wanted to take. Yahiro looked for something that wouldn’t hurt Anri to give away for free, Himeka looked for something practical, and Kuon looked for something that could be resold for good money or was strange enough to make for a good viral blog post.

Within a few minutes, each one had selected an item that they showed to Anri.

Kuon picked an ancient-looking wooden puzzle box.

Himeka chose a fountain pen that had been in a small paulownia box.

Yahiro chose a fossil of a huge shark tooth; it was impossible to say if it was real or a replica.

“I didn’t know we had all these… I suppose I really should create a registry of them all,” Anri murmured to herself. She happily agreed to let all three of the items go.

“Are you sure about this? It looks expensive to me…,” said Himeka apologetically.

But Anri insisted, “It’s fine. I didn’t have any plans to put them into the shop yet, and I’m sure they’ll all be happier being used or displayed. Please treasure them.”

She gave a saintly smile befitting the way she talked about what inanimate objects would “be happy” about.

“Miss Sonohara…”

“Thank you! We’ll take good care of them!”

The teens thanked her, delighted.

“…”

Except for one: Kuon, who intended to sell the parquet box as soon as he found out what was inside. His eyes wandered nervously. Yahiro and Himeka knew what he was thinking, but they chose not to say anything about it. They knew that confronting him about his nature wasn’t going to change the way he lived his life.

At a park, Ikebukuro

“So what were you doing there?”

“My contact in the police informed me that there was an incident at Sonohara-dou, which I frequent, so I went to take a look. And then I saw you for the first time in six months. That is all.”

Celty and Kujiragi were sitting on a bench in a park a moderate distance away so as not to encounter Akabayashi, trying to see eye to eye once more.

“In all honesty, I have no idea what you’re thinking. The police are after you, aren’t they?”

“Yes, I’m wanted for questioning in a serial murder case. It seems that they consider Jinnai Yodogiri to be the main suspect, while I am suspected of being an accomplice in his escape.”

“And…are you?”

“No. But I am fine with it, either way. I arranged it that way. And I have no obligation to explain my reasons.”

Celty considered this for a moment before typing, “I see… Well, that’s good.”

“What is?” Kujiragi asked.

“I’m saying it’s good that the person who fell in love with Shinra, and who is fairly friendly with Karisawa and Anri, isn’t despicably evil enough to commit multiple murders.”

“If you say so—I am evil. And it might turn out that the actual killer is a more benevolent person than me, just with their own particular circumstances.”

“Ah…good point. And I really can’t lecture anyone else about breaking the law… I spoke based on assumptions without knowing the identity of the culprit yet. I apologize.”

“Why do you say that?” Kujiragi asked, mystified.

“If you’re speaking up for the culprit, then it must be someone you know, isn’t it?” Celty asked directly. “I shouldn’t have said that they were despicable without knowing their background.”

“…I’m stunned. You’re even softer than I imagined.”

“That’s not exactly true. I’m actually fairly furious about you abducting Shinra, and that has not lessened,” Celty said, leaning closer to Kujiragi with her screen. As usual, the other woman was completely unfazed.

“…I will not apologize for that, nor do I regret it. But I also will not refuse to suffer punishment or insult for it. Speak your mind. Let me have it.”

“…No, it’s too late for that. But I will answer your earlier question.”

“My question?”

“Shinra is doing very well. Even better than before. He says that he’s happy just being with me, and he’s full of smiles every single day,” she typed, her answer to Kujiragi’s initial question (“How is Shinra?”) dripping with sarcasm.

“…I take back my comment. You are just a little bit nasty.”

“More than a little. I’m taunting you—don’t you get it? You should be more chagrined at your defeat.” Celty felt a little unfulfilled, as though Kujiragi had made the faintest suggestion of a smirk. “Ugh, now I’m just like one of those horrible romance movie women who brags about her boyfriend! Oh, well… Shinra is doing fine. He’s probably doing well because you lent him Saika. It’s foolish of me to still be mad about it, so I choose not to be. But…if I can say one other thing: You’re free to get caught, but don’t cause trouble for Karisawa and Anri.”

“That won’t be a problem. As I said earlier, I have pawns among the police and the media.”

“Pawns…? How is that possible when Shinra’s in possession of your Saika?” Celty asked, her helmet tipping.

Kujiragi glanced at a cat near the bench. “I don’t need Saika for that. I have plenty of ways to persuade people to do what I want.”

“Yeah, I really do feel like you’re evil… So there are still tons more Saika-like folks out there…?” Celty typed, mostly to herself. Then something occurred to her, and she asked, “Speaking of which, during the recent street attacks, Shinra was saying something about a wicked, cursed hammer named Bannanjin. You’re not using something like that, are you?”

“I’m surprised that he knew. He’s very knowledgeable.”

“…What do you mean?”

“I mean that I was previously in possession of that hammer. It currently rests in the storehouse of Sonohara-dou, however,” Kujiragi admitted, dropping a bombshell.

Celty practically scream-typed, “What?! Why is it with Anri?!”

“It was an apology after what I did to her over Saika. It wasn’t part of our usual paid dealings. I left a few of my items in her storehouse without permission.”

“Without permission?!”

“She would refuse if I tried to give them to her without asking for anything in return, wouldn’t she? I made them look like they’d always been there, so there’s no problem with it,” Kujiragi admitted.

Once again, Celty cradled her helmet, despite the lack of any head inside of it. “There’s nothing but problems! And just after I told you not to cause trouble for her! He said that it was a hammer that possesses people and accelerates their desires! Why would you leave something so dangerous…?”

But she lost steam when she noticed that Kujiragi seemed confused by this. The woman’s eyes narrowed. “That is incorrect information. To be precise, Bannanjin is not a cursed hammer with a mind of its own, like Saika. It’s just a normal hammer crafted by a blacksmith from the late Edo period, who modeled it after a work hammer created by the Western artist and blacksmith Karnard Strasburg.”

“Huh?”

“But it matches the original piece by Karnard Strasburg so closely that it possesses the same quality…which is that the perfection of the grip, the stimulation of the grooves, the visual pattern of the hammer itself—all these things have a hypnotic effect on the wielder. Those who noticed this must have started the rumor that it was a cursed hammer that possesses minds. Someone with a dull mind will receive no effect at all.”

She reached down to pet the cat, which had wandered over to her feet.

“But if someone who’s sensitive by nature but also petty and mean finds it, the effect will be amplified. It will be an especially large difference from their ordinary demeanor, which makes the ‘possessed’ explanation a bit more convincing…”

Rental office, Saitama Prefecture

Yukihiko Natsugawara was not blessed with anything you would call a talent.

Talent is not everything in life, and if he searched hard enough, he might have discovered something he had an aptitude for. But at the very least, he hadn’t found what that was yet.

Being raised as the son of a very wealthy family, he had the circumstances on his side to produce above-average results in both scholastic and athletic pursuits—if he just took advantage of his ample resources with hard work. That said, he’d found wealth to be a very comfortable and secure thing, falling under the mistaken assumption that he, too, would be fabulously successful without any effort required.

Everything started to go wrong when his parents took in the foster son.

His foster brother, who had all the same resources on his side but with a strong ambition to succeed, soon proved himself to be superior to Yukihiko in every facet.

Yukihiko scorned his new brother and tried to throw his weight around, but the boy even had more talent for fighting. The eldest son was now truly a loser in every regard, and rather than attempting to get back through diligent hard work, he threw in his lot with the option of raising hell instead.

He started visiting hangouts of delinquent youth and assumed he was making a name for himself there—but by the time he realized that they were only approaching him because they knew that being the son of the Natsugawara Group meant he had tons of money, it was already too late for him to extract himself from their grip.

Now that he had run away from home, he immediately found himself in trouble with the delinquent group and was therefore desperately trying to escape them completely on his own.

“Well, well. The rich little Natsugawara boy came crawlin’ back on his own,” said a voice in a run-down old building.

The voice belonged to a young man still in his early twenties. Even an amateur would be able to tell at a glance that he was not a good person to associate with.

Meanwhile, the person he was talking to was a young man with a cynical look in his eyes but who nonetheless couldn’t shake the general air of being a comfortable rich boy. In the classic delinquent relationship, he was going to be the guy getting shaken down for pocket money.

“The truth is, I’m just tired of running around.”

“You’re wasting our time. So? Where is it? We gotta get in touch with them once we see it, so whip it out.”

“…I’ve got it stored somewhere. I’ll go back and get it later.”

“What? You useless piece of shit! Bring it the first time! Or what? Do you still think you can strike some kinda deal with us?” the man demanded.

But the bourgeois boy, Yukihiko Natsugawara, simply grinned and took a step closer. “No, that’s not it at all. I just have something to do first.”

“Huh? What’s that?”

“Well, it’s very important, but I don’t want anyone else to hear. Can I whisper into your ear?”

“?” The man was suspicious, but he leaned his head closer.

And in response, Yukihiko Natsugawara grabbed a strangely patterned hammer stuck into his belt and smashed it against the man’s temple.

“Gah!”

The air shot from the young man’s lungs, and he fell to the floor, convulsing.

The other men in the room were stunned for a moment, then roared all at once.

“H-hey! What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Are you insane?!”

But Yukihiko roared back, gripping the hammer, in a voice that drowned out theirs:

“You sons of bitches! How much money did he pay you?!” he demanded, jabbing the tip of the hammer toward the man on the ground. “Are you happy, working like slaves for chump change?! You shouldn’t be!”

The men stirred and rustled uneasily.

“I’m Yukihiko Natsugawara! The son of the powerful Natsugawara Group! I’ve got far more money, and nothing he offers will come anywhere close to what I could give you!”

Then he pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and scattered it through the air. Several million yen filled their surroundings, and Yukihiko carefully watched the reaction of the other men.

The thugs were briefly taken aback, but after a quick look at the convulsing man who had been their leader until moments ago, they started collecting the money.

As of that very moment, their situation had reversed itself.

The young man who’d been nothing but an ignorant source of money had become the one in control, manipulating others with that same money.

It was a transformation as whole as a cocoon revealing a butterfly. The man held up the hammer and shouted again. But this time, it felt less like a message to them and more like he was trying to convince himself of what he was.

“From now on, I’m the boss of Heaven’s Slave! If you got a problem with that, money will clear that up!”